Podcast 295: Paul Johnson

Last week, we here at XLR8R kicked off a month-long series of special podcasts to commemorate our 20 years of existence. Obviously, a lot of music has come and gone in the last two decades, so we figured the best way to celebrate our own little milestone would be to highlight a few of the artists whose output has helped define the era. This week, we've enlisted Chicago house veteran Paul Johnson, a producer and DJ with an impressive resume that dates back even further than our own. Johnson's first record dropped back in 1990—on the seminal Dance Mania label, no less—and in the two-plus decades that have followed, he claims to have issued more than 200 EPs, including efforts for Peacefrog, Cajual, Relief, Moody, Dust Traxx, and numerous other imprints. During that time, his music has unquestionably evolved; where Johnson was once a purveyor of raw, drum-machine-driven ghetto house, his tastes (and production values) have become more refined over the years, and he now tends to favor more soulful sounds. That's certainly what's on display here, as he's assembled an hour-long session of deep and drum-heavy vocal house selections. It's an exceptionally smooth listen, and yet another example of how we never know what to expect when a podcast mix shows up in our inbox.

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